No More Stars
by VinVal
Summary: 6: At least he could still feel pain. A collection of snapshots chronicling Cid's passage through grief and what awaited him on the other side. [rated for language]
1. No More Stars

Disclaimer: Nothing but the idea.

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**No More Stars**

She could see the glow from his cigarette long before she saw him, hunched as he was against the railing. The collar on his dark suit jacket was turned up as always, white–blonde hair ruffled from the cold wind, and she watched as his hand trembled as he sucked on the filter like it was the last thing he'd ever taste. _Maybe it is, _She told herself.

All the same, she couldn't keep the scolding tone out of her voice, the tone she'd learned from her years of surrogate–parenting. "I thought you quit, Cid."

He turned to glare at her then, a deep snarl across his rugged face, an expression so fierce she was taken aback. "What the fuck do you think, Tifa?"

She took a step back, her high heel clicking against the sheet metal of the walkway, and he turned to look back over the town that held nothing for him, now. Swallowing her alarm, she began to cross to him, offer him comfort. Instantly, he shot out one hand, keeping her at bay. "Just don't, Teef? Alright? I've had enough of that pity train."

Indeed. When she and the others had arrived, long before any other mourners, they had kept their mouths shut. Tifa and Yuffie had pried the bottle out of his hand, Vincent and Cloud had led him to his room to get dressed. The rest had cleaned, clearing out a week's worth of liquor bottles and dust and broken furniture, arranging the sent flowers, trying to make it bright in a house that never could be again.

But when everyone else began to arrive, Cid, once a proud, loudmouth pilot, had stood there like a broken man, accepting tearful hugs and sorrowful laments from near–strangers and friends alike, and Tifa watched as the muscles in his jaw grew tighter and tighter until she thought he would snap, snatching the spear off his wall and… _I don't want to know what he would've done._ Instead, he disappeared rather unobtrusively, and she found him, high above, gazing up at the stars.

She was silent for a long, long time. Finally, he dropped the smothered stub of a cigarette, watching it fall to the frost–bitten grass below the launching pad, and he breathed a shuddering sigh. Cid's breath came out in white waves as he reached for the pack again, tapping it against his palm and sliding another slender stick out. It took him almost a full minute to light it, and Tifa had to force herself to refrain from helping. "It all started here. Where I first laid eyes on her, where I asked her to marry me, where we set up blankets and candlelight and a telescope, the night we…"

Before he knew it, she was beside him, covering his shaking hand with a steady one of her own, and she looked up at him with quiet, maroon eyes he hated – _Don't give me that compassion, girl – _But he also loved, because she understood that there were no more stars to him.

He clutched at her hand liked he'd been sucking at his cigarette only moments before, and he let his eyes mist over as they gazed down on the two crosses in the yard – A tiny one next to the full–sized one– that hadn't been there a week before.


	2. Baby's Breath

Disclaimer: Nothing but the idea.

A/N: Upgraded to a collection of drabbles because my mind kept playing with the scenario.

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**Baby's Breath**

He hated the flowers. They were everywhere, ugly and bright and reeking; bouquets on the kitchen counter, spilling over the end tables, covering the coffee table. There was even a goddamned vase of them on top of his television. He hated them; the reminder that something was wrong, something had _changed_, and all Cid wanted was to be able to pretend he was a bachelor again– _You are, dumbshit_– back before he'd ever thought about flying that god–forsaken rocket.

What was even worse was that Tifa had cleared out all of his booze. He dragged himself up every morning, the clink and bang in the kitchen lifting his heart for just that split-second, a moment that crushed him when he turned the corner and the light brown hair and warm brown eyes he expected to be waiting for him turned out to be dark brown and red, instead. No, no one could mistake Tifa for Shera; the martial artist was shorter, her frame built like the fighter she was, her presence demanding respect. Shera had been slight, with slender fingers and a padded callus embedded into her right middle finger from the pencils she used to draw her diagrams and blueprints; her footsteps had treaded lightly, unlike Tifa's stomping tendancies; his engineer's smile had been quiet while the bartender's grin was bright. Shera had been soft where Tifa was strong; in the end, Cid knew that might have been the reason for all this.

So when he sat at the kitchen table, heart breaking over again as it had for two weeks at the sight of the wrong woman cooking his breakfast, and she set down the plate of slightly runny eggs and almost burnt bacon, toast covered in too much butter, tea slightly cold and too sweet, he ate it anyway. Ate it because it all became ashes in his mouth, a taste so similar to his cigarettes he wouldn't have been surprised if she'd dumped milk into his ashtray and fed it to him like cereal. And he had to stare at the fucking vase of bright yellow daises and white lilies and delicate baby's breath–_ Ohgodithurt_– and pretend he wanted to eat instead of tearing apart the house, trying to find that bottle of vodka he'd hidden from Shera when she forbade him from drinking or smoking while she was pregnant.

Cid knew Tifa had found and eradicated it, already. At least he still had his ciggies.

He lit one up while he studied Tifa as she cleaned up around her, wiping the dishes and setting them in the rack by the sink, her movements quick and measured. She was a force of nature, a whirlwind of power and pride and prowess, already a fierce mother to children that weren't hers and a few of her adult friends, as well. A small fragment of him wished he could go back, choose a strong woman over his weaker one, so he wouldn't ever feel this, because a woman like Tifa– _I hate you, Highwind, I hate you so much_– would never have done this to him, and it was all he could do not to climb into his newly–renovated _Tiny Bronco_ and crash it somewhere into the ocean, a fitting death for a lonely pilot.

So when the clumps of obnoxious flowers began disappearing, one by one, he didn't notice, despite how much he loathed them.

He hadn't slept for three days, he was so afraid of the hope that would flood him if he woke up to Tifa's cling and clatter again. Instead, he stood at the end of the hallway, staring out the small window on the backdoor, trying to imagine an unbroken lawn and the rocket still beaming into the sky, trying to pretend he'd never built that swing off the supports of the launchpad so she could sit and watch while he worked, trying to deny that dawn was cracking over the edge of the sky to steal away that hazy, make-believe world from him, and that was when he saw that the fresh mounds of their twin graves had been covered in the white lilies and yellow daisies and pink carnations, intertwining roses and eucalyptus obscuring the names on the crosses.

Cid sucked in a breath, ignoring Tifa standing beside him until she reached out and gently touched his elbow.

Her voice was low and mellow, twinged with a un–Tifa–like softness. "The flowers were never for you, Cid. They're for them."


	3. Eavesdropping

Disclaimer: Nothing but the idea.

A/N: I know people are reading this, so please, tell me what you think, despite that fact they're not cute or fluffy (not that I have anything against cute or fluffy)! I'd really appreciate reviews and feedback, especially constructive criticism. Hell, a simple, "I like it" would brighten up my world.

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**Eavesdropping**

Tifa liked to check on Cid at night, making sure he was asleep before retreating to the guest room. She'd sit on the bed for hours, staring at the padded rocking chair pushed into the corner, the walls painted a powder blue, accented with a border of teddy–bears and bouncing balls and building blocks wrapping the ceiling. The painted oak chest was full of unused toys and adorable clothes that still held tags, a changing table still covered in its plastic, protective wrap. The plush, spinning mobile was hanging above the blanket she'd made and the stuffed rabbit she'd bought as a gift, in a crib that would never see a child.

She curled into a ball after retrieving the bunny, clutching it to her chest and crying herself to sleep.

Since Cid couldn't sleep, he turned on the baby monitor he'd never use for a baby to listen to the silence. He found himself listening to Tifa's sobs instead.

In the morning, when she greeted him with a bright smile, he convinced himself he'd imagined it.


	4. Broken

**Broken**

She watched him out of the corner of her eye as she swabbed their breakfast plates, sliding them into the clear rinse water as he gazed out the kitchen window. Haphazardly stacking them in the dish rack, he wore an expression somewhere between a frown and a grimace, ignoring the pleasant breeze wafting the light curtains toward them, the bright and earthy smell of an unexpectedly sunny day. The lines around his mouth were deeper than she'd ever seen them; his crow's feet spreading from the corner of his solid eyes like the decorative, leafy centerpieces Shera had favored for Christmastime. Tifa held up a stocky juice glass, letting it sparkle in the sunlight, casting prisms on the wall between the sink and window. She could hear the wind chimes on the front porch twinkling, the only noise in the quiet kitchen.

Tifa savored the peace for a moment before the familiar pang of guilt struck her. This house should not be silent. The baby should be squawking, Cid should be swearing, and Shera should be laughing as they tried to subject an unhappy Highwind male to a bath in this very sink.

She reached over to rinse the glass, lost in her reverie, and the back of her knuckles brushed against Cid's palm as he pushed the faucet out of his way. It knocked the glass out of her hand, clattering into the ridge of metal dividing the sinks, breaking into three large shards and a few dozen smaller ones.

Cid stared down at the broken glass. Tifa was frozen, caught by the way the water and the glass scattered hazy streaks of colors on his aging cheeks, and she blinked once as he struck her in sharp focus, a clear, unresolved picture of the two of them. She had fallen into a pattern, taking care of every blue–eyed, blonde man that looked a little lost, and the swell of resentment rose in her as Cid closed his eyes and turned away from the sink.

She carefully plucked the offending pieces of glass out of the sink, still watching Cid from the corner of her vision. He was clenching his fists at his sides again, staring at the closed refrigerator door as if he was about to smash in the insulated metal. The edges of his hair were beginning to curl; short, fat ringlets forming at the base of his skull where a trail of wisps had begun to creep down either side of his neck. The muscles there were taut, bunched cords that shot down his spine to his hips; posture rigid over a shattered glass.

She leaned on the heels of her hands, turning her face back toward the sink as she bit her lip, trying to suppress the urge to turn on one steel–toed boot and stomp out of the house, just to make some sound, just to get anything other than that pathetically concealed reaction. She was sick of being the dependable one with the perpetual smile. But no, this was Cid, not Cloud. Shera had been dead for not quite a month, instead of years. She could not let her face break over the glass in the sink.

Cid whooshed out a breath, deflating as his fists went flat at his sides. She turned, leaning against the counter, crossing her arms over her stomach. "Glasses break every day, Cid." She said in her soft voice, the tone she used to console Marlene's scraped knees and Cloud's brooding silences. She'd been using it so much lately she'd forgotten what it felt like to speak naturally.

Cid's answer came natural enough. "Just make some fuckin' tea, will ya?" He shot over his shoulder before crossing to the living room. He noticed that her spine stiffened; that defiance she felt at being bossed around so familiar, a reaction he never would have expected from Shera. _Don't do it, Teef,_ he pleaded with her, the part of him that remembered friendship making him want to at least mouth the words. _Don't listen to me._

He heard the stove click on as he sat in front of the television, signaling the compliance he didn't want from her. The T.V. babbled noise into the house, and Cid leaned his head back against the couch, staring at the broken rainbows the faceted crystal hanging from the windowsill made on the ceiling.

It was too bright out today.

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A/N: Thanks a bunch to lilthvermillion, whiskey and cyanide, FHS, motchi, Horky, Ralf Jones, random reviewer and x Sarizer for feedback and reviews. So very much appreciated! 


	5. Idle Appreciation

**Idle Appreciation**

He was smoking a cigarette on the front porch, gazing at a slivered moon poised on a not–quite–night horizon, glad to have the house and launchpad – _their graves_ – at his back. He flicked the ash off the glowing ember, and it drifted in the faded light toward the abandoned flowerbed past the edge of the porch. Cid stared at it stupidly, as if the basil and irises and that sunflower that had been almost as tall as Shera would sprout again out of the frost–ravaged ground, and he realized the last good look he'd given the plants had been right before Shera'd started to show. _Maybe if I'd paid attention then…_ He shook the thought from his head before it could finish. _No point to it, Highwind. No point to it anymore._

The screen door slammed behind him as Tifa tromped the short distance across the wooden planks to sit next to him, stretching out her long, muscular legs in front of her. Cid took a moment to idly appreciate them, something he was wont to do since the day he met her and discovered her affinity for nothing past her knees. Her boots grazed the ridge of bone mid–way up her shin, her calves swooping toward her ankles and the line of her quadriceps shifting under her pale skin as she adjusted herself on the step. He watched, wondering when he'd become so old that Tifa's thighs didn't inspire him into at least raising an admiring eyebrow.

She pushed a hot mug into the hand that wasn't preoccupied with his cigarette, and he accepted it while he lifted the filter to his lips, puffing out the smoke through his noise like a dragon. Tifa let out a slight chuckle, and he rested the mug to his lips to let the scent of the smoke linger with his tea, an aroma he cherished, until he discovered it was coffee. He pulled it back, and as the black liquid sloshed against the rim, he noticed there was a distinctive oily sheen to the surface of it. He gave it a tentative sip. _Yup, whiskey. Where the hell she'd been hiding it?_

Cid downed a gulp because he knew what was coming. Life was going to change again. Hell, he didn't have anything against it, except it was the wrong change. He'd been prepared for the right ones: the challenge of fatherhood despite the lack of guidance, the added strain to his and Shera's already misbalanced marriage, the knot tightening on his freedom to take to the skies whenever he wanted. He'd been ok with that. But this? He stole a glance toward Tifa, leaning on one elbow, her lips pursed like she was mulling over one of the stern lectures she gave Denzel. He could deal with this, but… He ran his tongue across his lips. He never thought to prepare for this.

"Vincent will be here tomorrow," Tifa told him, leaning forward and tightening her grip on her mug. Cid nodded. Yup, just like he'd thought. When had it been decided he couldn't be alone? He could only have a drink if someone else decided it was ok? When had he booked passage and handed the ticket to the conductor on this pity train?

It was a kaleidoscope of events, the bloodstains on the mattress, to the pregnancy, to the wedding, to the failed launch, to the day he'd stepped out of the rocket to see her standing there with a dusty labcoat and clipboard and an all–but–literal stamp on her forehead that screamed that she was greener than Kalm plains on a mid–summer's day. And yet he'd felt it then too, just like he'd felt it the day he'd walked into his house to see Cloud; that inexplicable stone being tipped over the teetering point on the hill, and here he was at the bottom, nothing to show but cracks.

"I need to go back to Edge," Tifa stated, her eyes glued to the tips of her boots. "The kids miss me, and they can only handle so much Yuffie, anyway." She lifted her mug to take a swig as Cid snorted his feeling on _that_ particular ninja through his nose. He leaned his elbows on his bent knees, setting the coffee cup by his feet and studying the ember growing dangerously close to the filter. A breeze wafted through the house, and he inhaled the scent of the steam of the coffee and the smoke of his cigarettes and the lavender Tifa'd dragged into the house since the druggist had bought too much – _It'll make you feel better, Cid, I promise_, she'd told him – and had a sudden craving for one of the sweet, gooey brownies she'd made to prove to him she could bake.

He gave her a long glance only to see her staring at him intently, as if trying to discern his reaction, a careful, gauging look that it pained him to see, since he knew it was all for him. He wanted her to wear the unconsciously beaming look he'd seen when she'd held out the bunched lavender to him, when he realized that the washed–out color of the plant would look good as a dress hem clinging to those supple legs, a pale contrast to her maroon eyes and dark hair. He took one last drag on the cigarette before stubbing it out on the porch step that was littered with matching black smears.

He wanted her to cherish her freedom, something he shouldn't have so much of now, he didn't want her to be stuck with an old man who would only take her for granted. He thought of Shera's glowing face at their wedding. _Darlin', if I had known it would end up like this… _It wasn't what he wanted, it wasn't what he didn't want, and he said it anyway before his mind could settle. "Vince and I will be just fine, Teef."

She sighed softly and gave him a grin that reached her eyes, one he hadn't seen since she stayed to take care of him, and he thought, _Ah, there it is._ He decided to enjoy the pan of brownies while he could.

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A/N: erhmm… This one is longer to make up for the lack of updates on my fics. I've been terribly and unforgivingly distracted by CLAMP's xxxHOLiC and making plans for my husband's birthday. (Seattle, here we come!) 


	6. Face Value

**Face Value**

_Vince and I are doin' just fine, _Cid liked to reassure himself. He woke up in the morning and made tea for himself and his guest before joining him on the couch to watch the morning news. The enigmatic man would already be sitting, fully dressed with his pillow and blankets stashed away because he'd opted not to sleep in the guest–room–that–should–be–a–nursery, as Cid had come to think of it. After watching the news, Cid would make himself breakfast before heading out to his shop to tinker with his engines and electronics and Vincent would… do whatever Vincent did. It wasn't that Cid didn't care, he just knew his friend valued his privacy and Holy knew, it was stretched enough with him staying in Rocket Town to keep Cid company.

Cid began to reluctantly settle back into a bachelor's life; filled with hours reading books or fitting this greasy fan to that dirty rotor or rolling smokes on the kitchen table and leaving his tobacco flakes where they fell, something he'd been forbidden to do once the house ceased to be solely his. It was existence; the only thing that kept him going was that maybe, one day, things wouldn't be so bleak. Maybe he'd be able to feel again, feel something _tangible_, something other than faint anger or faint guilt or the faint desire to cry, his emotions were as washed–out as those watercolors Shera loved at the open–air market in the summer, smears of paint so close together he could never tell where blue ended and green began, he liked his colors bold and bright, and when he told Shera that, she'd laughed and pulled his arm tighter around her shoulders, guiding his grumbling to another booth.

And just like that, he was bent over the workbench, pliers in one hand and the other clutching at the wood, trying to breathe between the sobs. He wiped his eyes on one grimy sleeve, leaning into his forearm as the wracking shudders in his chest started to subside, and then he straightened up, glancing at the doorway to see a silent Vincent standing there with one hand on the door and a wary look in his eyes.

"Tifa called." He gave Cid a knowing glance before exiting.

There it was again, except this time it was faint shame. Shame at what? Crying over the death of his wife and almost–born son? Shame at grieving in front of Vincent, of all people? Mr. I've–Never–Tried? Cid shook his head at his own ridiculousness, wiping at the grease on his forehead with one almost–as–filthy glove before turning back to whatever it was he'd chose to do with his day.

But it still surprised him the next morning, while Vincent was in the shower, Cid conjured up his customary illusion – the bacon frying in the pan, eggs waiting in their bowl for their turn, toast burning and tea cup under his nose – and instead of Shera rolling her eyes and poking at the bacon, the one in the kitchen with smiling face and spatula in hand was Tifa, and she was threatening to hit him with it, a mischievous glint to her eyes.

The chair clunked as it slammed back onto the floor; Cid hadn't even realized he'd been leaning back on two legs. Tea sloshed over the rim of the mug, burning the side of his hand and searing into his thigh through his flannel pajamas. The mug almost tipped over again as he flung it at the table. "Goddamnit!" He shouted, shooting up from his chair and throwing the web between his thumb and forefinger into his mouth, other hand holding the cloth away from his leg.

Vincent was in the doorway, with one eyebrow raised. _'Bout as much as an expression I'll ever get,_ Cid thought cynically before he could stop himself.

"Are you all right?" Vincent asked. Cid nodded, still sucking on his hand to ebb the throbbing, and Vincent turned back to the living room. _At least he'll take my word at face value._ Cid pulled the hand from his mouth, staring at the swollen, puffy red blotch. He winced as he flexed his fist, and his mocking inner voice remembered the previous day in the workshop and only had one thing to say.

_At least you can still feel pain, old man._

He thought of Tifa before she left, that unbidden smile. _Maybe that's not all._ Cid stared at his burned hand. _Maybe._


End file.
